WHY DON’T WE EXPAND NUCLEAR ENERGY? FSM
December 11, 2009
Exclusive: How Committed Are We to Advancing Nuclear Energy in the U.S.?
Don Petersen, Ph.D., Bill Stratton, Ph.D.
In recent weeks, articles have suggested that the administration is becoming more receptive to expanding nuclear energy generation by upgrading capacity of existing units and accelerating NRC approval of utility applications for new construction. Now is a pivotal moment for advancement of U.S. nuclear energy. How serious the Obama administration’s intentions are can be judged by the steps taken to restore the U.S. nuclear construction industry. A brief review shows how the industry arrived at its present condition.
Initially, Light Water and Sodium Cooled reactor prototypes from Westinghouse and GE were successfully tested at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. A liquid metal breeder reactor generated the first usable electricity in December, 1951, but for perceived safety reasons, Adm. Hymen Rickover selected Light Water Reactors for the nuclear Navy. Because of that early developmental “leg up,†Light Water Reactors (LWRs) are now the backbone of U.S. nuclear generation capacity, providing a fifth of the nation’s electrical energy despite spent fuel disposal concerns, suspect long term fuel availability, and an aging reactor fleet.
U.S. advanced reactor R&D has not fared so well. In 1979, believing that reactor grade plutonium could be used for weapons, President Carter suspended all commercial reprocessing, expecting that other nuclear nations would follow suit to reduce the threat of proliferation. None did, but commercial nuclear power development in the U.S. was effectively killed. Political pressure persisted under President Clinton when Secretary of Energy, Hazel O’Leary, ordered highly successful EBR-II shut down and dismantled, and instructed the Argonne National Laboratory to terminate effort on spent fuel recycling, that made proliferation less likely and the amount of material requiring permanent disposal much smaller and shorter lived.
In 2001, DOE revived planning for the expansion of nuclear power production through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The program recognized the advantages of eventual conversion of the nuclear reactor fleet to fast breeder/burner systems and adoption of fuel recycling that separates relatively short lived fission products for disposal and puts everything else; repeatedly back through a closed fuel cycle. These systems can burn over 90 percent of the fuel that LWRs waste, to generate electricity and increase fuel availability several hundred fold with no accumulation of Plutonium. The effort faces stiff opposition from other energy interests, and suffers loss of critical infrastructure and expertise to resume construction of new reactors. That capability now resides abroad in France, Japan, Russia and China, to name a few.
Specialized manpower, test facilities for new components and core configurations, manufacturing and construction infrastructure, and a modern, secure separation process all must be reconstituted to get us back to where we were in the mid ‘70s. A hiatus of 30 years has left us woefully short of talent and production/construction resources. In 1975, we had EBR-II, the Fast Flux Test Facility, Savannah River separation, the Idaho/ Argonne Critical Assembly, ability to manufacture reactor components, and a robust private sector with nuclear divisions and test facilities at Rockwell, Westinghouse, General Electric, Babcock and Wilcox, Combustion Engineering and others, are now gone because of wrongheaded decisions and political payback. All those capabilities are essential for nuclear technology to advance beyond the light water reactor.
If the Obama administration is serious about expanding nuclear energy, telltale tracks will appear as policy decisions. Recognition of the absolute necessity for modern recycling is the most compelling clue. Without recycling, accumulation of spent fuel with over 90 percent of the energy still in the fuel pins will continue. Nuclear power expansion will fail without recycle – the amount of U-235 is finite and accumulation of LWR spent fuel will exceed existing storage capacity. here are probably 50 to 100 years of power production remaining using once through fuel in LWRs, but well understood advances in reactor design and fuel technology can extend that time to millennia with disposal of short lived (300 years) fission product waste in existing repositories. Adding sites like Yucca Mountain and WIPP will signal that nuclear power development beyond LWRs is not contemplated and the decision to deal permanently with transuranic waste has been made. That decision is tantamount to abandoning nuclear energy development beyond LWRs and the Obama administration will be well on the way to finishing the job started by Carter and Clinton. Reconstituting infrastructure for construction of nuclear plants in the private sector and new educational opportunities in nuclear engineering will be clear indicators of a decision to expand.
Reasons for nuclear construction cost overruns in the past are a matter of record with entire books written on each. The premium on loans for nuclear plant construction is key – injunctions and antinuclear delaying tactics in the courts must be curtailed in order for utilities to risk capital. Skyrocketing material and labor costs affect all construction, but overruns resulting from injunctions and permitting delays are uniquely nuclear. NRC now issues a Combined Operating License shortening the process by one step, saving both time and interest on loans, but the Obama administration’s remedies for the intentional escalation of interest charges and construction costs by permitting delays and antinuclear opposition in the courts, also provides a clue. NRC pre-approval of reactor designs and siting proposals, and the replication of “cookie cutter†LWRs will happen, but support for advanced R&D of more efficient fast reactors and recycling methods will indicate that increased nuclear contribution to energy demand has been recognized in technical rather than political terms.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Don Petersen, Ph.D., writes for the Los Alamos Education Group and is past Leader of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Life Sciences Division. Since Operation Desert Shield, he has served on the Deputy Undersecretary of the Army for Operational Research advisory panel for development of chemical and biological weapons detection and protection equipment. Bill Stratton, Ph.D., writes for the Los Alamos Education Group. Now retired, he spent his career at the Los Alamos National Laboratory working on reactor safety and while a member of the working staff of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, was instrumental in explaining why no radioactivity escaped from the reactor core. He has consulted for nuclear utilities, reactor vendors, the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and was a member of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.
R
Comments are closed.
